Voyage of the Scotia 1902-04

People of the Expedition

W G Burn-Murdoch playing bagpipes in polar environment

William Gordon Burn-Murdoch (1862-1939), a Scottish artist and traveller, was involved in some of the polar expeditions of his friend William S. Bruce. They had first met as university students in Edinburgh, after which Burn-Murdoch managed (at the last moment) to travel as Bruce's assistant as naturalist and surgeon on the whaling barque Balaena on the Dundee Antarctic Expedition of 1892-93.

In his paintings Burn-Murdoch depicted many of the scenes during the voyage, starting immediately with the departure from Camperdown dock.

Burn-Murdoch was a piper, so the theme of piping in polar environments, and the interaction with polar wildlife, was often a subject of his artistic work. He wrote of his experiences in several books, including "From Edinburgh to the Antarctic".